> To me, the downside of remote coworkers is we've already seen a dynamic at many companies that start with "we'll allow remote workers" straight to "if we allow any in-person collaboration, then remote workers will be second-class citizens, so to pre-empt that, we will actively discourage any in person collaboration."
My perspective on that is that, at my workplace, the L4 lockdown in NZ was actually a significant improvement, which might sound counter-intuitive. That's because there was an implicit decision-making process where people local to your floor/building/city tended to talk together and remotes were second class. Once we were all on an equal footing - forced to be explicit in who we bought into Zoom/Teams/etc sessions - we got improved and more thoughtful interaction.
Since we've left L4/L3 we've managed to preserve that culture, even with people dropping into a cadence of a few days in the office and a few days remote, because it's normalised the idea that every conversation has a remote component. That's persisted for a good 9 months, so we'll see how it persists.
My perspective on that is that, at my workplace, the L4 lockdown in NZ was actually a significant improvement, which might sound counter-intuitive. That's because there was an implicit decision-making process where people local to your floor/building/city tended to talk together and remotes were second class. Once we were all on an equal footing - forced to be explicit in who we bought into Zoom/Teams/etc sessions - we got improved and more thoughtful interaction.
Since we've left L4/L3 we've managed to preserve that culture, even with people dropping into a cadence of a few days in the office and a few days remote, because it's normalised the idea that every conversation has a remote component. That's persisted for a good 9 months, so we'll see how it persists.